Kochcare vs. Obamacare: Finally, Finally, Obama Comes Out Swinging

Mr. Obama also singled out sponsors of a “cynical ad campaign” discouraging Americans from signing up for the new health care program by arguing that it would effectively put the government into the room when women undergo gynecological exams and men undergo colonoscopies.

“These are billionaires several times over,” Mr. Obama said, evidently referring to the conservative political activists Charles and David Koch, without naming them. “You know they’ve got good health care.” But if people who turn down the new health care subsidy get sick, he said, the Kochs would not care. “Are they going to pay for your health care?”

Damn! A few days ago, when I first read about these silly Koch-sponsored ads, I thought I would post here commenting on the good news: The Koch brothers are promising to pay the medical expenses of young people who forego healthcare insurance now available to them via Obamacare!

That was how I interpreted the ads, anyway. I mean, after all, the only other option for these newly christened “young healthies” who do have the option of gaining affordable healthcare insurance through Obamacare is to not have healthcare insurance at all. Sort of like the many millions of seniors who, without Medicare, would have no access to healthcare insurance at all, because of its high cost or because of preexisting conditions.

But since the Kochs aren’t urging seniors to forego Medicare in order to keep the government out of, say, the chemotherapy room or the coronary-bypass-operating room, I figured the difference was just that the Kochs aren’t willing to pick up the tab for the elderly, who will have no choice but to continue to let the government into the examining room with them and their doctor. I mean, what other possible reason would there be for the Kochs to not run ad campaigns similar to those directed at young people but instead directed at Medicare recipients?

None, I thought!

But I was wrong. According to Obama, the Kochs have no intention of paying the medical bills of the young people who, at their urging, and misunderstanding the ads just as I did, forego Obamacare in order to keep the government out of the physician’s examining room. And out of the delivery room. And out of the orthopedic surgery room. Among other rooms.

How disappointing. All those young people who thought from that ad that they’d be inviting the Kochs into all those rooms, and that the Kochs would accept the invitation! Or at least have United Health Care, WellPoint and Blue Cross Blue Shield stand in for them. Only to hear the president say that that’s not what the Kochs meant.

Of course, what the Kochs actually are doing is trying to keep United Health Care, WellPoint and Blue Cross Blue Shield from being ushered into the examining room, via Obamacare. And also from keeping their targets—the young currently-healthies—from themselves entering the examining room, at all, or from entering it and then having to pay large out-of-pocket retail costs (should they happen to have a savings account or a decent-sized regular paycheck, and can pay it). Even if they suddenly become unhealthy.